788: Players to Avoid

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JAYJ zachera j Shake zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's jj zacher eeson and this is episode seven and eighty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Last week on the show was Rich Reebar and we were talking about players that were targeting this season in fantasy football. On today's episode, it's the other side of that spectrum or players to avoid and to help me out, I talked to none other than Establish the Runs Evan Silva. We both came prepared with five players that were not super into a cost this season, and we discussed each player and explain why we feel the way that we do. I hope you enjoy the back and forth as much as I did. And speaking of Established the Run, they've got a great podcast you can add to your rotation. This show, the Late Round podcast. It's usually just me giving my season long fantasy football takes, but Established the Run might offer up some things that I might not be able to get to, like analysis on betting. You should definitely check them out. Wherever you get your podcast, just search for Establish the Run, and of course don't forget to check out the Late Round Draft Guide. It's pack full of strategy related information that will help you crush your season long drafts this year, and it's updated weekli so you're getting all up to date information on players to target and players to avoid. Check that out right now over on lateround dot com. Now, without further ado, here's my conversation with the one and only mister Evansilva so Evan. Obviously, when we're talking about players to avoid, we're not saying avoid these players at all costs. I think that's a sort of silly way to approach something like this. We're saying to avoid these players at costs right and where they're being drafted right now. Very important distinction there, because we're not saying that these guys are bad. We're not saying that you shouldn't walk away from your drafts with these players, because everyone is a value at some point. But with that being said, we've come prepared with five players that were each generally avoiding in drafts this year. Why don't you kick things off with one of those guys?

00:02:04
Speaker 2: So I think that the obvious or the reason at the forefront of why to Faye Jonathan Taylor is because of his fallout with the with ownership. I actually think that that's going to end up being resolved anyways and isn't going to be that big of a problem. But I think that there are issues that go beyond that with his projection this season. Apparently he's still rehabbing his ankle from last year, which he suffered multiple high ankle sprains. Again, that could be part of a hold in. What is most concerning to me though about Jonathan Taylor is his outright almost utter lack of a receiving projection. If you look at, first of all, the way that the Colts want to play this year under Shane Steiken, they want to run the crap out of the ball, which theoretically sounds positive, but I think that the targets are just not going to be there for Johinahathan Taylor. If you look at Anthony Richardson's throw rate to running backs when he was a quarterback at Florida, it was one of the lowest in the country. The overall pass volume in Indianapolis is going to be very low because of their because of their offensive philosophy, and I'm worried that they're going to struggle to run the ball because right now they have two big, glaring holes on their offensive line at left tackle and at right guard, which they have pretty much open competitions. I know people want to compare the situation to Philadelphia last year because Shane Stiken is coming from Philadelphia, and I just I don't think that that's fair. The Eagles had the best offensive line in the league, They played with positive game script constantly, they had the softest schedule in the league. I don't think the Colts are going to be good, and I don't think Jonathan Taylor is going to get targeted in the passing game. And I think that it goes beyond the Jim Mersey stuff. I think Jonathan Taylor is a bust as a fucking round pick.

00:04:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, there's a lot of data that suggests that running backs, really any type of personnel, whether you're talking running backs, wide receivers, tight ends are not only bad bets in fantasy with mobile quarterbacks, but they're also bad bets in fantasy with rookie quarterbacks. And so I think that there's definite downside to Taylor. Agree with you, you know where he you know, obviously, right now, with the holdout and stuff. He's he's dropped in drafts, but the instant that that ends, if we see that end, you know, in the next week or two, let's say his ADP is gonna shoot back up to where it was, and where it was was most definitely, you know, a little too expensive on my end too. So I think there's a lot of environmental things here that are risky for him. And like you said, the receiving profile for Jonathan Taylor, it's not like it's ever been there in droves. It's not like he's been this like fifteen percent target share guy. You know. So I'm with you. I agree with you with Jonathan Taylor this season. I'm gonna move on to another running back, one that I think has become really polarizing when you look at the fantasy landscape with analysts. I think there's a handful of analysts who absolutely love this guy at ADP, and there's a handful of people like myself who don't like him at ADP, and that's Miles Sanders. I would argue that if the Frank Reich video that came out him sitting in that office with Miles Sanders saying that he wants Sanders to catch fifty balls, like or sorry, he wants Sanders to catch a lot of balls, and then he referenced the fifty reception stuff from his rookie season. If that video never surfaced, it never came out, I'm not sure people would be as bullish on Miles Sanders as they are right now. You know, I do a lot of research on finding players and values by looking at trends based on ADP expectation. So looking at here's what we expect a player to score on a points per game basis at a certain ADP, how did this player exceed or not exceed that ADP expectation? And I call true breakouts guys who exceed ADP expectation by six or more points per game. And if you look at last season, the running backs who did that, Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard, you know, almost Ramandre Stevenson, you know, these really big breakouts, the biggest values at the position that we saw last year. Since twenty eleven, we've never seen a single true breakout running back from a team with a rookie quarterback. And that's exactly what we're looking at with Miles Sanders, with Bryce Young starting they've exceeded expectation, they've been okay. But what I see from that kind of data point and that kind of data is that I don't think Sanders is going to be someone who absolutely burns you. If you don't draft him this season, you know he's being drafted to me based on perceived volume. Where we look at the depth chart and we say, oh, Trueba Hubbard, you know Raheem, blackshear, they're not very strong running backs. Miles Sanders is projected to see all of this work. Therefore he's bus proof. But that's sort of what the traditional dead zone has been about at the running back position, where we get really really excited about these players because of that perceived volume, and then they don't see that volume because the talent isn't necessarily there. I don't think Miles Sanders is that bad of a running back, especially on early downs. I do question his ability as a receiver, though, if you look at what he's done since that rookie season that Frank Reich was was referencing, he's been abysmal. I mean, his his yards per round run rates were point six to seven point eighty one. Last season. Evan it was point twenty nine, he's been really, really inefficient as a receiver, and everyone talks about Frank Reich saying this pass catching thing to Miles Sanders him being this three down back and he's gonna see all this work well. Duce Staley is also on that coaching staff. Duce Staley is a running back coach and assistant coach. Not only has Staley historically split his backfield up, but he he was quoted this offseason saying that playing the running back position is like being in a car wreck. And when that's the case, he's then referencing having a committee in that backfield. So the main reason I don't like Miles Sanders at ADP is because I don't see this massive profile difference between Miles Sanders and someone you can get a round or two later in a James Connor and a Rashad White, what have you. Those guys profiles similarly. And I know that a lot of people will say, well, the Panthers offense is going to be better than the Cardinals offense or the Bucks offense. I don't think that's a lock. Number one. I don't think that we can confidently just say this team with a rookie quarterback is going to automatically have a better offense than any other offense in the league, because we've generally and historically seen rookie quarterback offenses not do well, you know, in the NFL. So I don't think that's really a strong argument for him. And then you look at you know, a guy like White, Rashad White, James Connor. They have just as much pass catching upside. I'd just rather go that direction than go with Miles Sanders.

00:08:32
Speaker 2: Totally get that. I think that Miles Sanders and I've drafted him a little bit. You know, if he falls to the right place, of course, I'll take him. You you'd probably take him, you know, if he falls below as ADP I don't.

00:08:42
Speaker 1: Think I've gotten some exposure this year.

00:08:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that he's as you say, he's not going to be a guy that if you don't get him, that's really going to hurt you. I also think that he's not going to be a guy that wins you any league. So I would almost view him as a somewhat high floor, low upside pick, which that belongs in the middle rounds. Yep, And I'll take him. I'll take him if he falls below ADP and if I don't get him, like, oh, well.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: You know right, exactly exactly, And this is sort of my I think this goes back to just more of a philosophical thing too, where there's a lot of players who I think can meet ADP expectation, even on this list that I'm going to talk about today, but just philosophically, I'm trying to hit ceiling with a lot of these guys, and I don't know if that true RB one upside is there for Miles Sanders this year is an RB two season in his range of outcomes. Of course, of course it is, but you know, it's not something that I'm really striving for whenever I'm drafting him again a couple of rounds ahead of a guy like Rashad White or James Connor. All right, Evan, who do you have next on your list?

00:09:41
Speaker 2: I'm gonna stick with the Indianapolis Colts and I'm gonna go with Michael Pittman. And Michael Pittman's ADP is much lower than last year. People were very excited to draft him. He wind up catching a ton of passes, he did not do very much with those on those passes, this year. Again, this Colts offense is going to be one of the run heaviest in football, So the opportunity just is not going to be there. He's the clear number one target that the defenses can sell out for, especially if they can stop the run against this offensive line that has has a ton of holes on it. So just the past volume is not going to be there. He was not effective in on his targets last season and they're gonna be way down this season. I also really question is Anthony Richardson ready to play in the NFL. I mean, he has not yet separated himself from Gardner Minshew, and I think that the way that Jim Ursay and Shane Steichen have talked about using him like they're just gonna throw him in the fire and let him take his lumps. And I don't think that's gonna work out very well for Michael Pittman.

00:10:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, he's another guy playing with a rookie quarterback obviously and a mobile quarterback. Those are two knocks on wide receivers. Really hitting a ceiling the only piece of upside. And I did an episode on you know, RPO heavy offenses and what that means for the wide outs in those offenses. It was sort of stemming from some research that our friend Ben Gretch did, and what I found was that, yeah, RPO heavy teams, it does seem like they do hyper target some of their receivers just given the nature of what an RPO is. The problem with that and people people walked away from that episode thinking, oh, we gotta we got to draft Michael Pittman now because he's in what will likely be a pretty RPO heavy offense with Shane Stikeen going there. But to me, there's still so many negatives to this profile and sorry the situation. I should say, I think Pittman's fine enough as a receiver, but there's so many negatives of this situation where I don't think that the RPO stuff really outweighs, you know, the the negativity of playing with a rookie quarterback and mobile quarterback, that low pass volume in the offense, et cetera. So I'm with you. I'm a couple spots lower than consensus on Michael Pittman. He has been dropping, you know, in drafts. You know, he started like a month ago. If we were to record this, he would have been a very, very easy fade, but he has dropped a little bit, so I'm only a couple spots below market with Pittman, but I'm definitely in agreement that Pittman's someone that I'm not hyper targeting this season in my season long leagues. All Right, I'm gonna move on. I think it's the only quarterback on our list today. I'm gonna say Kirk Cousins. And the reason I'm saying this is because, again this goes back to my just general philosophy and how I'm approaching and playing fantasy football. This is much more of a game theory thing than a projection thing. Kirk Cousins will probably finish as a high end QB two, low end QB one, because that's what Kirk Cousins does. He's been QB twelve, QB twelve, and QB eleven and each of his last three seasons in points per game. So if you're trying to beat ADP, sure you can draft Kirk Cousins. But I'm not trying to just simply beat ADP at quarterback. I want guys who can be true difference makers, who are gonna be have the ability at least to be top six guys. Kirk Cousins really doesn't have that ability. He's never given us more than one point four points per game with his legs in a single season. He's just not a mobile quarterback, as we know, and we know that non mobile quarterbacks just inherently capped upsides and cap ceilings and fantasy football. And then I will say this too, Minnesota's offense from a passing perspective, and really just the offense in general, might see slight regression this season. Last year they were fourteenth in yards per drive. They were seventeenth in scores per drive, so that aligns fairly well, but they were top ten and touchdowns per drive, so they were converting these drives and these scores into touchdowns at a pretty high rate. You know, I'm not necessarily saying that I would fade the Vikings offense. I think the Vikings offense is definitely one that you can still look to, especially like a Jordan Addison, who have been targeting a ton this season. But Cousins himself, you know, I want a player with legit twenty one twenty two point per game upside. Cousins can give you those spiked weeks. This is not a best ball take where if you're stacking these guys, that's fine, that's totally different. This is a managed season, long league take. It's really hard for me to draft a player like Kirk Cousins.

00:13:54
Speaker 2: I get that, and I think you can tell yourself a story where Kirk Cousins has one of the best seasons of his career. Everyone has Justin Efferson as the one point zho one that he was a first round pick on Jordan Adison, first full season of TJ. Howkinson. The offensive line. They've invested a ton of high picks in that and their defense I think could be really problematic. And still Kirk Cousins could finish quarterback eight or nine, right, you know, it's this ceiling just simply is not there. And I get that.

00:14:21
Speaker 1: So to me, it's almost like what we saw with Matthew Stafford the year they won the Super Bowl when he went to the Rams, where in hindsight people still think that Stafford was this like amazing fantasy asset and he really wasn't. He was still a low ENQB won that year despite having essentially a career year. So something to keep in mind with these pocket passers. But yeah, go ahead, give us the next player.

00:14:42
Speaker 2: Travis Etn. And this is a player who I recently moved fairly considerably down my ranks. I think I've got him down to RB seventeen at this point and just just digging into his season a little bit more. Last year and talking with Dwayne MacFarland, who does a really good job of identify utilization of running backs for fantasy life, Travis Etn was really bad in scoring position last year, like real bad in scoring position, had a ton of opportunities actually inside the ten and flubbed them continually. Short yardage and goal line. He's not a short yardage of goal line runner. He's also not good as a receiver. And Travis Etn did catch a lot of pass He had over one hundred catches in his college career, so I think most people that are just looking at the data, I thought that he was going to be really good in the receiving game. The film guys won out on this one because the film guys have always questioned Travis Etn or whether or not he is a natural pass catcher, and I think that time has shown that he is not. And now the Jaguars go out and draft Tank Bigsby, who is really good in short yardage and goal line, who caught fifty one passes over his final two seasons and is a natural in the receiving game coming out of Auburn. I think Tank Bigsby is a player that I want to target a pressively around pick one ten or so, and I'm gonna let other people draft Travis etn This year.

00:16:07
Speaker 1: I had some people hitting me up whenever my prospect guy dropped because the model, my model really really liked Tank Bigsby a lot. Clearly, he hasn't played a single snap of NFL action and in an NFL game, but I do think obviously you know, the stock is pointing upwards for Bigsby right now. His top comp in my model was DeMarco Murray Tank Bigsby. And if you look at you know one of the things, It's so simple, and I talk about this all the time in my show, but if you get just two things, if you want to see if a running back has that ceiling, has that potential or not, look at running back size, basically him being over like two ten and he's around to ten Tank Bigsby is. And then look at his best season reception share in college and Bigsby had both of those things. There have only been eight running backs since twenty eleven of a best season reception share add or above eighteen percent while lighing in two hundred and ten plus pounds. Three of those backs had top top one hundred draft capital outside of Bigsby. Bigsby makes four, but the three backs were actually, interestingly enough, Charles Simms, who's not great, obviously didn't have a great NFL career, but then it was David Johnson and Rashad White, and David Johnson and Rashad White both comped pretty favorably to one another in my model as well. So it's sort of that arc type that we're looking at with Tank Bigsby, a do it all back who does have the ability to break big plays despite his size. I agree with you that, you know, I can understand ranking Travis Etn in his positional rank sort of where he gets drafted, because the running back position could just gets so flat there. But my problem with Etn is more so the receivers that are going around him. It's just really really difficult for me to draft him over like a Christian Watson or something like that. And these guys who just have crazy upside a wide receiver when you know that there's probably a cap ceiling for someone like Etn. Speaking of that range, the next player on this list, Naji Harris. Definitely curious to hear your thoughts after I talk about him here, because he's another player who I feel like is somewhat polarizing in the fantasy space. There's some people who think that he's this year's Josh Jacobs. I'm not in that group. I think that Harris is another high floor, low ceiling type play who is fine. I don't think he's gonna, like totally totally burn you if you draft him, but I also don't think he's gonna burn you if you don't draft him. It's so similar to a Miles Sanders type recommendation. But everyone looks at his splits during the front half versus back half of last year, because you know, at the start of the season, Harris had that that toe injury, and he had that steel plate in his shoe and his cleat, and everyone looks at from week one to eight, he averaged ten point nine PPR points per game. From Week ten through the end of the year, you know, there's a very convenient split. When the Steelers had their bye week, that jumped up to fifteen point two points per game. And everyone's like, oh, it's because he got healthy. Well, there's a few reasons for it, right, it's the Steelers schedule got a lot easier down the stretch last year. The front half of the season, not only were they pro probably the worst offense in football, but they also faced some really, really tough opponents. And so what we saw was Naji Harris really during the second half of the year, he doubled his touchdown production. He ended up scoring point eight touchdowns per game after scoring point four touchdowns per game during the front half. If you look at his backfield chair, if you look at his market share numbers, they're not any better during the second half of the season versus the front half. And if a player is getting healthy, that's the sign that you would think would show up that he's getting healthy because the team's giving him more work. But really the opposite happened because Jalen Warren started to become a bigger and bigger piece of that offense. If you look at the front half of the season, Naji Harris had a seventy seven point four percent running back rush are per game rate that dropped a sixty eight point two percent during the second half of the year. His target share went from nine point six percent to eight point five percent per game and that's all because Jalen Warren was seeing more work in that offense. He saw a five percent target share in the front half to an eight percent target share in the back half. And to me, you know, if you look at their their per touch numbers last season, between Warren and Naji Harris, Warren was arguably the more impressive back between the two. I'm not saying that he can handle the same type of warkload per se, but Warren was definitely the more explosive back, definitely the more of the home run hitting back. And then we're already seeing him being deployed, you know, in camp and such, and the reports out of camp being deployed sort of as their third down back, and that's a huge, huge problem from a ceiling perspective for a player like Nause. I think the Steelers' offense is gonna be a lot better this year than it was last year. I'm pretty bullish on the offense in general. You know, there's gonna be a lot more passing touchdowns than we saw last season in particular, which might not help Harris in this case. But I'll say this, Jalen Warren right now is my highest rostered player in Best Ball. My highest exposures to Jalen Warren because you have that contingent upside if something were to happen to Harris while also having some production week in and week out. I'm just not high enough on Harris. I think that Jalen Warren is a bigger threat than the market seems to think.

00:20:56
Speaker 2: I just think that Naji Harris is a boring, vault based, you know, middle round fantasy pick who you know, I'm never excited to draft, and I haven't really drafted very much of him this year. After last season ended, I took, you know, about a month and a half off just to sleep, and when I woke up, I was going through all the coaching changes and I couldn't believe that the Steelers brought back Matt Canada. Yeah, so the return of Matt Canada, and I mean, I kind of want to have some optimism about their offensive line, and you know, year two of Kenny Pickett and year two of George Pickens and Deontay Johnson can't be as bad as he was last year. And Pat Fryermuth I really like him. I've been drafting a good amount of him. So I want to have optimism about this offense from some angles. But the return of Matt Canada, you know, it throws a little water on that.

00:21:51
Speaker 1: And arguably the worst offensive coordinator in.

00:21:53
Speaker 2: Football probably is yeah, you know, and I'm with you, Jayla Warren, solid little back, you know who's who's definitely gonna going to eat into Nagie Harris's playing time. And Naji Harris is a guy who needs to be on the field constantly and get a ton of touches in order to be able to be, you know, a fantasy factor because he doesn't hit big plays. I mean he's he's, you know, one of the least explosive runners in the league. And then it comes down to touchdowns. And I don't know how good the offense is going to be because Matt Cannada is back.

00:22:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense to me. All right, Evan, who is your next player on this list?

00:22:29
Speaker 2: Next guy? DeAndre Swift? And DeAndre Swift has generated some solid buzz early in Eagles camp and people want him to happen. I mean, I think that his ADP is actually like two rounds too high right now. First of all, we know that he's going to be sharing the backfield in Philadelphia with Jalen Hurts, number one, who's gonna have a monster season. I've actually heard that Jalen Hurts looks better, actually can considerably better this training camp than he did last year and he was like what fourth and MVP voting yeah or something. Last year. Rashad Penny opened camp as the number one back in Philadelphia, and I think that he's like the clear cut favorite for carries. And we've already heard that Kenneth Gainwell is going to work in the two minute and the hurry up and that's where DeAndre Swift would make his money. We also know that Jalen Hurts does not have a history of throwing to running backs very often. And we also know that the Eagles are going to be good, so you know they're not going to throw a lot as a team, and that's what DeAndre Swift does best. Now, I think that DeAndre Swift, when he gets the ball, he's going to be effective for the Eagles. He's always been efficient but I don't think he's going to get the ball nearly as often as some people think, and I think he's actually a bust at his ADP.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting is there was that report talking about Swift sort of getting these manufacturer touches in the offense, and everyone's saying, like getting super excited about that for Swift and for fantasy. I don't see that as a plus. To me. That reads more like what I remember back in the day when we would read about Cordnerio Patterson and they would always talk about Patterson getting these like special touches in the offense. Then everyone will get really hype over it. But the problem with that is you don't really want that. I mean, sure it's not bad to have. I mean you want as many touches as possible, but you just want the running back to be naturally implemented into that offense and get cheap targets out of the backfield. You want the dumpoffs. You don't want these manufactured Line them up in the slot, line them up out wide, and just throw these screen in these bubbles to them and allow him to rack up receptions that way. Because DeAndre Swift is competing with Devonte Smith, with AJ Brown, with Dallas Goddard. It's not that easy to find a fifteen to twenty percent target share for a player like Swift, which is what he was essentially seeing on a per game basis in Detroit. So I agree Swift is someone who basically at market haven't drafted them that much this season. I've been on on this show saying that I would much rather just draft for Shot Penny at his ADP than DeAndre Swift at his ADP. I think Penny matches up in the lines more with like what we saw out of like a Miles Sanders last year and being able to be efficient on the ground, and that's what Philadelphia probably needs a little bit more, whereas Swift is sort of just this piece that will make the offense better in real life, but I don't know if it's going to really translate to fantasy football.

00:25:23
Speaker 2: And I think there's also a lingering concern about how coaches feel about DeAndre Swift, because when DeAndre Swift was in Detroit, the coaches determined that he couldn't hold up to a significant workload. Yeah, and you know, whether you want to blame that on his toughness or whatever, or his propensity to get injured or just you know, he needs to tag out after a couple of plays, you know, I mean, why would that not carry over to Philadelphia? Yeah, and I think that the Eagles actually know that about DeAndre Swift. They probably know. They're very analytical, they're super sharp. I mean, they might be the sharpest organization in the NFL. You know, they probably no knew right away when they traded for DeAndre Swift on Draft Day that they were gonna purposely limit his touches because he's better when you do limit his touches. So there's just again, I think he's gonna make he's gonna he's gonna give him some splash players over the course of the year. I think he's going to be efficient with his carries and on his catches, but he's just not going to do enough to help you in fantasy football.

00:26:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, you can look at metrics and paint a very favorable picture about DeAndre Swift as a player. You can look at his per touch efficiency. He's great when you're looking at spreadsheets in that way. And I'm one of these analytical folk who come on podcasts and talk about that kind of stuff, but you need nuance to that evaluation. You need to think about, all right, why is it that Detroit is letting this player go and effectively drafting a better version of him in the first round of the NFL Draft and letting this guy walk for not a lot of draft capital. There's usually something to that. You can't just assume that he's the same exact player that he was or what we thought he was, you know, entering the NFL. So at least keep that in mind that there's a reason that teams are trading players and not wanting them when they're in their prime. I mean DeAndre Swift, hypothetically, given where he was drafted, given what we all thought about him entering the league, should be in the prime of his NFL career, and a team's getting rid of him and replacing him. What does that say about that player? I think there's at least, you know, don't let that overcome your evaluation, but there's obviously something to that. There's something to that, all right. The next guy I want to bring up this is tough. I think the wide receiver market is fairly efficient. I don't know if you agree with me or not, but it seems like wide receiver people are drafting them where they generally should be drafted. They're valuing seemingly the right things in my opinion, of course, so it's really hard to find players to avoid this season that are being drafted, you know, earlier at wide receiver. One guy, though, who I haven't drafted a ton of is Chris Godwin, and this could easily bite me because obviously Chris Godwin's a good player. I think one of the problems with Godwin is that a lot of people have comped this situation in Tampa Bay to what we saw in Seattle last year, where it was very easy to say, I'm not going to draft DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett because Gino Smith's there, and I'm not going to trust the quarterback situation. All right, If you were to guarantee me that Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask would end up being the most accurate quarterback in the NFL by most metrics, I would be drafting Chris Godwin. I would be drafting Mike Evans. But I don't think that we can come close to making that assumption. I think we have to understand that Gino Smith is more the exception, not the rule to these kinds of situations. Godwin, interestingly enough, has just never been this massive target hog. I looked back, I was kind of surprised with this. I just didn't realize it until this offseason. But Godwin's never averaged above a twenty three percent target share per game in a single NFL season, which is not that high. I mean, it's not low. A twenty three percent target share is still fine, and he's playing across Mike Evan, so of course it's not going to be this massive, massive number. But in an offense like this, like the Buccaneers offense, for a player to really hit a ceiling, he's likely gonna have to see a twenty seven, eight, twenty nine percent targets here. And that's my that's my fear with Godwin is that I don't know if he's gonna be able to get there because he hasn't gotten there in the past. We haven't seen that. We have a pretty large sample of Godwin. I actually am probably a little bit lower on Evans than I am Godwin versus the market. But the reason I'm calling Godwin out is obviously he's drafted earlier. You know, it's a bigger deal if you're fading a guy like Godwin over Evans, and there's this guys in his range that I would prefer, you know, Christian Watson on Fantasy Pros expert consensus doesn't go of that. I mean, he's like one spot ahead of Chris Godwin, Drake London. I have Drake London ranked ahead of Chris Godwin this season, and a lot of those like you know, Tyler Lockett, who I think is obviously criminally undervalued. He's someone who I have ranked ahead of of Chris Godwin. I think you can make the argument for. And I have Deontay Johnson ranked ahead of him, and you know, Mark, He's Brown. You can make the argument for. There's just so many wide receivers in that range. I just don't think that you need to pinpoint Chris Godwin and say this is the guy that I absolutely need to target this year.

00:30:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's kind of sad because we know that Chris Godwin was a bowler, and yeah, shoot, he's won me money in DFS and he's been you know, an awesome redraft pick, you know, in previous seasons. And also he's also not coming off a very good, very efficient season actually comes super inefficient season. I think he's gonna be okay because he was coming off an injury at that time, remember the right the big knee injury that he suffered the previous season. But yeah, I mean, there's just not much positive to say either, just about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense in general. My final guy is Zach Sharpona. I know that because we exchanged before this. I know, I know that you're in on him and that's okay, And it scares me a little bit to be out on him because if something happens to Kenneth Walker, I think Zach Arbona could go off. I mean, I think that Zach Sharbonay is like a pretty good prospect. I also think that there's a chance that he could carve out a receiving role. He's gonna have to compete with DJ Dallas, so I know they trust in past protection for that role. But Kenneth Walker just doesn't have very much of a history as a pass catcher. Even last year, you know, he had twenty one catches on the season. So it's just to me, I think that they're going to roll with Kenneth Walker as the lead dog. If something were to happen to him, I think again, I think Zach Scharboneay would capitalize on that opportunity. I think this offense could be really freaking good this year, but I think that they're going to lean on Kenneth Walker. Last year, when Rashad Penny was healthy, he was the main dude. Then he got hurt, Kenneth Walker came in, he was the main dude. I think that, you know, this is sort of like an older school coaching staff under Pete Carroll. They believe in things like feeding a running back care to get him into a rhythm. And Kenneth Walker is a dude who can hit big plays. And he was one of the most explosive running backs in the league on a per play basis. Last year. He finished eleventh among running backs in rushing attempts and third in carries of fifteen plus yards. I mean, he can be a home run hitter. He ran sub four four coming out of Michigan State. But that's my bet against Zach Sharbonay. And look, Zach Scharbonay goes in late enough that it's a stupid pick or anything like that late in drafts. Yeah, but I just think that he's not going to be a contributor for as long as Kenneth Walker is healthy.

00:32:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's valid. Like if anyone listening to this, because I talked about this in my last Mailbag episode, if anyone listening to this believes that Kenneth Walker is going to see the majority of the team's backfield snaps the season, then yeah, you don't want to draft a player like Sharbonay who would effectively just be a handcuff, right, like that that's what you're You're You're not going to get that standalone flexibility from that, like you would like a Jalen Warren or a Tank Bigsby potentially, right, he'd be more below that tier as opposed to being above that tier, which is where he's drafted. My thing with sharbon Ay, I think he's a safe prospect. I don't think he's like an explosive this guy is gonna just tear a football field up kind of prospect. To me is like a James Connor, right, just a solid, solid running back. And my my thing with tying that to this coaching staff and tying that to this front office and what they just did is that Kenneth Walker last season unbelievably explosive, huge home run ability, but that also came at a price, which was it was really inconsistent. Right, he had one of the worst success rates in football. He had the lowest rate of gaining positive yards in football last year. And then obviously you have the pass catching concerns which date back to college. It wasn't even just last year with the pass catching stuff with Walker, you know, it goes back to when he was playing in college as well. And so you look at sharbon A, what does Sharbonay do. Well, Well, he's a grinder, right, he'll gain those positive yards, and he's also a decent enough pass catcher out of the back field. And so I think that they looked at what they had in Kenneth Walker in year one, and this being sort of this old school mentality front office coaching staff, they said to themselves, Oh, we're gonna run the ball. We're gonna be able to do it effectively. I don't care if we're going to spend a second round pick to get a compliment to Kenneth Walker, which we could have probably gotten that compliment in the Day three instead of spending that second round pick. But it's the way that they think about this stuff. And to me, that's the main reason why I think Sharbonay is gonna be more of that one bee in the backfield, with Kenneth Walker being the one A and then the other piece of this that I think the pass catching stuff has way higher odds of coming to fruition than this other piece that I'm about to talk about. Kenneth Walker last year ended up seeing every single goal line rush for the Seahawks. The Seahawks had ten goal line rushes, which was the fewest in the NFL, and every single one of them went to Kenneth Walker, and he barely converted on those touches. He was really really bad at the goal line. And part of my thought was Sharbonay, being the grinder that he is, is that there's a chance, there's a non zero chance that not only is he taking some of the receiving work out of the backfield, but he takes some of the goal line work from them too, And those are the two areas you know no one wants. This is clearly you know, you're not saying all this as like a pro Kenneth Walker take. It's just a Sharbonna take. But there's a chance that you know, Walker would then be a between the twenties kind of guy, and maybe he has those home run hits that he hits, which would be very very bad.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: That would not be good, Which is kind of the situation that I was talking about with potentially happening with ETN and Tank.

00:35:33
Speaker 1: Bigsby exactly exactly. And it's I see it as a very very similar situation as that. Given what Walker and Etn both are able to do, which is give them the ball, they're going to hit home runs every once in a while and be this explosiveness in that backfield. But what did these teams then do and how did they react? They reacted by getting more of those grinders and those guys who would do it all backs. And given the fact that, like they have this old school mental on that coaching staff, would you be that surprised if sharbon Ay like they just fall in love with a guy like Sharbona because he's just a grinder, Like he's just like that kind of back you know, like a like again like a James Connor type.

00:36:11
Speaker 2: Like like sharbon Ay could be the Marshawn Lynch and then Kenneth Walker could be the Christine Michael.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, Yes, yes, exactly. But yeah, I mean, like I think that sharbon Ay has that upside of course with an injury, but I also think there's more standalone value than you might think. But look, I think in range of outcomes here, this is the way that I approach fantasy. Anyone listening to this knows that. And so if you believe listening to this or you evan believe that a lot of the reports which are very favorable for Kenneth Walker, aside from the injury stuff that he's dealing with right now, they've been very favorable for Walker all off season where they're talking about, you know, him still being that dude and him still seeing seventeen touches per game and all that kind of stuff. If you believe that, then yeah, you probably don't to draft Zach Sharbonne where he's being drafted, because there are other handcuff plus backs going after him with probably similar upside. All Right. The last dude I want to get to George Kittle, another one who I hate to talk about as an avoid because I mean, who doesn't like George Kittle. He's got to be one of the most likable players in football. And then on top of that, he's an incredible tight end. He's one of the best tight ends in football. But this is a situation in San Francisco where I have a lot of hesitations. You know, Dwayne McFarlane, who you referenced earlier from Fantasy Life, he had tweeted earlier this offseason that when all four of these guys were healthy and on the field this past season, these four guys I'm referencing are Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Ayuk, and George kittle. You know, Deebo Samuel had like a twenty one percent target share, Christian mccaffreys was up there, George Kittles was thirteen point seven percent, which is just not going to cut it where he gets drafted. And then you look at the forty nine ers offense when Brock Purdy took over, you know, during the regular season last year. I just I don't think people realize how good and how efficient the offense was at scoring touchdowns last season. If you compare, they scored three point eight three touchdowns per game that San Francisco offense. If they were to do that across the entire season, and you compare that to team since twenty eleven, that's sixth best in the NFL over the last decade. If they were to maintain that pace, which I think you and I are sitting here right now, would not expect them to maintain that or not expecting to be a top six or seven offense of the last decade heading into the season, despite the fact that they have, you know, really really good weapons. Kittle down the stretch last year, people will look at his splits with and without Party and they'll say, oh, he performed really well with Purty. Well, he also accounted for fifty four percent of their receiving touchdowns down the stretch. It's just not gonna happen year over year. That's what regressions all about. So I see a lot of regression there. I think Kittle's different from a best ball perspective because he has arguably the biggest ceiling of any you know, non Kelsey tight end or Andrews tight end on a week to week basis, depending on how that game plan sort of unfolds. But there's gonna be a lot of valleys in there that are going to make you very frustrated. From a season long standpoint, and in season long, you know you're going to just be starting George Kittle every single week. It's not gonna be a situation where you have that backup like in Best Ball, where another guy can just be slotted in there during one of those down weeks for Kittle. So to me, in season long, from a managed perspective, he's something that I'm just not that into.

00:39:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, last season, brock Perty completed one hundred and fourteen passes and through thirteen touchdowns, seven of them went to George Kittle.

00:39:30
Speaker 1: Crazy, So that's just going.

00:39:31
Speaker 2: To be difficult to repeat. All the guys in San Francisco, with the exception of probably Christian McCaffrey, are going to be spiked week guys, you know, so you know, more more preferable in Best Ball. For sure, Deebo is going to be a spiked week guy. I think Ayuk is coming off his most consistent season. He was really good when Perdy was in there. But I think that just because of the nature of the offense and all the different figures that command the football, I think they're all going to be spike week players. And I think that George Kittle is really at the top of that list as the most volatile on a week two week basis.

00:40:06
Speaker 1: Silva, as always, man, thanks for hopping on. I greatly greatly appreciate your time. For anyone who's not following Evan on Twitter, you can do so at Evan Silva and do the same for me at Late Round QB. Don't ford to check out the Late Round Draft Guide, check out everything going on with Establish the Run, and if you've been liking this podcast, whether throughout the off season or just this month, do me a solid and leave a rating and review. It goes a long way in helping the show. Thanks for listening to everyone. Talk to you later in the week.